DIY Cleaners You Can Make At Home

Living a clean, chemical free, and healthy life is important to many. For this reason, people are looking for more ways to reduce the amount of unhealthy substances and chemicals that they use in their daily lives. Some consumers have turned away from commercially produced cleaning products in favor of natural homemade alternatives.

In addition to having a healthier home, switching to home-made products is also good for the environment, as they are made using environmentally safe ingredients. These ingredients, such as vinegar and baking soda, are often found in the home and are typically less expensive than commercial cleaners. Other ingredients that are both eco-friendly and popular in DIY cleaning recipes include borax, lemons, alcohol, and cornstarch, just to name a few. These ingredients can be used independently or in many cases they may be mixed to create various effective cleaning solutions.

Vinegar

Green Cleaning: Green cleaning recipes are listed on this PDF sheet from the University of Florida. Many of the recipes featured in this article use white vinegar as an ingredient, for example, the glass and window basic cleaner “Option One” is a combination of vinegar and water. Options one and two under “General Purpose Cleaners” also use vinegar as the primary ingredient.

Cleaning Products – Recipes and How-To’s: DIY recipes for a disinfectant, drain cleaner, and floor cleaner that use vinegar as one of the main ingredients. In addition, there is also a floor polish that uses vinegar and oil in equal parts.

Lemon

Non-Toxic Home Cleaning: Substitutions and Formulas: The formulas on this page are recipes for DIY cleaning products. Many of the products feature several recipes. Lemon is featured as an ingredient in numerous recipes including the recipes for a chopping block cleaner, a bronze and copper cleaner, lime deposits remover, and a toilet bowl cleanser.

Liquid Castile Soap

Cleaning Products: On this page readers will find DIY cleaning product recipes that include castile soap, including a scouring powder and all-purpose cleaner. Other natural ingredients used in the recipes include baking soda and vinegar.

Green Up Your Clean Up!: An article that discusses green cleaning products and their benefits over commercial products that use chemicals. At the end of the article readers are given a recipe for a DIY all-purpose cleaner that uses liquid castile soap and Borax.

Baking Soda

Homemade Cleaners: A list of homemade cleaners listed by the type of cleaning product that is needed. Beneath each category is an ingredient. Recipes using baking soda are found beneath the categories “Kitchen and Food Odors,” “All-Purpose Cleaner,” “Carpet and Rug Cleaner,” “Drain Cleaners and Drain Openers,” and “Laundry Products.”

Baking Soda – The Everyday Miracle: A PDF article that discusses the many uses of baking soda when cleaning and deodorizing. The article lists recipes and methods of using baking soda in DIY recipes.

Borax

Alternative Household Cleaning Solutions: The general use for Borax and other cleaning ingredients are listed in this PDF article. A number of the listed DIY recipes for cleaners feature Borax as an ingredient.

Green Cleaning Tips: Under the section titled “Other Cleaning Options” readers are given a list of alternative, DIY cleaning solutions using common household ingredients. Lemon is listed as an as a soap scum remover and as an addition to the all-purpose cleaner made with vinegar.

Sixty-Six All-Natural Cleaning Solutions: Read the benefits of using this type of liquid soap on the RealSimple website. Readers are also given a number of cleaner recipes using castile soap as an ingredient. The DIY cleaners are for the floor, counter-tops, sinks, tubs, stove-tops, and more.

DIY: House Cleaning: Green cleaning recipes are listed by purpose or room in this PDF document. A number of the recipes use baking soda, including the instructions/recipe for carpet deodorizer, tub and tile cleaner, and toilet bowl cleaner.